Return of Victory: A Kurtherian Gambit Series (Reclaiming Honor Book 8)

by Justin Sloan

  “Well then, let’s hope you’re not crazy and this is really happening,” Micky replied with a chuckle.

  “Want me to pinch you so you can see if you’re sleeping or not?” Garcia asked her.

  “You pinch me, you get a vampire fist in the face,” she replied. “Plus, I’ve never really bought into that whole ‘pinch to see if you’re sleeping’ thing. In a dream, wouldn’t I just dream the pinch and then I would feel it in the dream? I mean, who thought of that, anyway?”

  “I can’t argue that.”

  “How about we not argue at all and just get to work?” Micky offered. When no one had an argument against that, he smiled. “Right. I’ve never been here, but I’ve heard of this place. The indies call it Bonus Tirith, though I’m not sure why. It’s their fortress, their agreed-upon stronghold if they should ever face a unified threat.”

  “Which means they’re fucking idiots,” Garcia said with a laugh. “I mean, right?”

  “All of them together in one place…” Valerie shrugged. “Seems that way.”

  “From your point of view, maybe,” Garcia admitted. “But when you think about the fact that they’ve rigged this place with weapons they’ve found over the years and that their contingency plan involves a group of vampires and Weres standing guard, it might not seem like such a bad idea.”

  “Until someone of Valerie’s power comes along,” Robin pointed out.

  “That’s the flaw,” Micky conceded. “Of course, since they’ve never experienced anyone of Valerie’s power, it might have seemed like a very smart move until now.”

  “I can still be killed, you guys.” Valerie glanced down at where her shirt was torn but the skin had healed from being kissed by a bullet earlier. “At least, I think so.”

  “No better time than now to find out,” Micky said with a grin.

  “Not funny.” Robin pointed at Valerie and added, “Don’t you dare die. You do, and I swear by all that’s holy I’m coming after you to kick your ass.”

  “Deal.” Valerie bit her lip, then nodded. “Okay, it’s settled. I go in alone, you guys cover me. You hear the shooting stop and don’t see any sign of me, you come in after me.”

  “Perfect, except of course I’m coming too.” Robin checked her weapons, not even bothering to see if she got a response to that.

  “I can’t put you at risk,” Valerie said when nobody else spoke. “Not after meeting Mr. and Mrs. Robin.”

  “Their names are Mom and Dad, and don’t worry, I know you won’t let me die.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

  She was about to argue further, but she knew Robin too well and that it wouldn’t work. With a sigh, she nodded.

  “Best method of attack?” she asked Micky.

  “You’re letting her go, then?” Garcia asked, skeptical.

  “She’s not my mom,” Robin countered.

  “I mean, you’re barely an adult.”

  Robin turned on him, but Valerie got between the two. “First, no fighting between my crew.”

  “We’re your crew now?” he asked.

  “Yes, you are. Second, you want to question someone on the team, do it on your own time, and take it up with me first. I hear another comment like ‘She’s barely an adult’ or ‘but he’s only a man, not even modified,’ because let’s be honest, both of you guys are that, I’m kicking some ass. Got it?” She turned back to Micky, not even waiting for a response. She knew they got it. “Now, best method of attack? You have to have heard something we can use here.”

  He pursed his lips, staring at the ghostlike building, its white walls gleaming in the moonlight. “Not much, to be honest. Except from before; they say there was a massive breakout from this place. Soon after the Great Collapse, local groups started throwing their prisoners in here. I mean for some time too, that lasted. Kids were born and raised there. But one day they rose up, broke out, and came back to slaughter their captors. Only, it didn’t stop there. They moved on to the surrounding towns and cities and massacred anyone who wouldn’t accept them as their rulers, then—”

  “Micky,” Valerie interrupted. “I asked for a plan of attack, not ghost stories.”

  He shrugged. “Not as much of a ghost story as you think. Lady Woo was one of them, the stories say. She was only a child, but even then she was crazy as all get-out. Stories say she was the one to kill most of the children. She insisted, and when one of the adults in the group questioned her, she grabbed his gun and killed him too. Crazy little kid. Crazier adult.”

  “And we’ve let people like this survive?”

  “Apparently.”

  “Fine, so they broke out.” Valerie turned back to the hospital, assessing the grounds. “Where?”

  “Around back. They’ve covered it up by now, I’m sure, but it’s gotta be more vulnerable than the rest of the place. Plus, they might not have bothered to do much with it, figuring their attackers wouldn’t know the stories. After all, they killed everyone involved, so only insiders knew.”

  Valerie wasn’t the only one who did a doubletake at that. He shrugged. “Pops. He had his history, that’s for sure.”

  “Damn,” Garcia said.

  Robin nodded. “People nowadays…like a box of crackers.”

  “Never know what you’re gonna get?”

  “What? No, you’re gonna get a bunch of stale ones. Some have been eaten by mice, some have mouse shit on them. You might get lucky if you find a couple that still have the taste of salt to them, but otherwise, you might as well just make your own crackers from scratch.”

  “Robin, what the hell are you talking about?” Valerie asked.

  “Sorry, I’m realizing I’m hungry.”

  “And your hunger makes you talk about moldy crackers?” Garcia laughed. “Some appetite.”

  “I never said moldy. I don’t think that happens to crackers.”

  “Team, focus.” Valerie breathed, reminding herself to set the boundaries early with her next team. “What else did Pops tell you, Micky?”

  “He talked about being wet and—or am I mixing this up with a story he used to say he heard from a friend?—about the smell.”

  “Oh, hell no,” Valerie pulled back, scrunching her nose. “They went through the sewage pipes, didn’t they?”

  “Yeah!”

  “We’re not doing that.” She turned to Robin. “Agreed?”

  “Damn straight.”

  “Yeah, forget this.” Valerie stood and adjusted her sword belt and felt for the pistol at her thigh, then realized it might be a good idea to see if it was loaded. “I love this whole planning thing, but here’s the deal. We’re just going to kick their asses. Robin, stick with me but stay behind so I can charge up; you make sure they don’t surround me. I don’t want you getting shot because I dodged a bullet. I want the bullet hitting the guy behind me, then you jumping in to kill his girlfriend. Got it?”

  She nodded.

  “Wait, you’re just going to charge in there?” Micky frowned. “What about catching them off-guard? Being sneaky?”

  “Wouldn’t they expect that?”

  He considered, then nodded. “I suppose so.”

  “Exactly. So mine is the better way to catch them off-guard.” She beamed. “Any questions?”

  “We just sit here, ready to shoot anything that looks out of place?” Garcia asked.

  “Sounds like we all know what we’re doing.”

  “Only one problem.” Garcia pulled his rifle to his shoulder and spun. “There’s a whole shit-ton of things looking out of place right now.”

  Valerie took a sniff and cursed herself for not paying attention. Now that she smelled them, she glanced around and saw them too. Various figures were moving in on them. They must’ve triggered some sort of sensor or something on their way in, or simply been spotted after all. Of course, if they had vampires and Weres—which they apparently did—flying at night wouldn’t have done much to conceal the Pod.

  “New plan, then,” Valerie s
aid.

  “Fight like crazy and hope we survive?” Garcia asked.

  “You know this one?” She smiled, but nodded at the Pod. “I don’t want you two getting hit, so take cover in there and shoot from within. It’s bullet-resistant.”

  “That’s comforting.”

  “Robin and I will do our thing from out here. Go!”

  They broke for it and Valerie spun, ready to make a move on whatever group would come first. A rustling of trees sounded and something was moving, smashing through them. Three large wolves, leaping from the ground to push off trees, moved to avoid the bullets that started fanning out from Garcia and Micky’s direction.

  A closer scent caught her attention—a vampire, at least one. But it seemed to be right where she was. She spun, not seeing anything, and then realized her mistake. When she turned to look up, she saw him.

  It was a slender vampire, his teeth gleaming in the night, his eyes wide with curiosity at seeing her.

  Still, he didn’t hesitate. In an instant he had leaped for her, a long sharp metal rod in his hands. He attempted to spear her heart, then aimed the spike for the soft section under her jaw. Spinning out of his way, she saw the Weres arrive and Robin take out the first one with a series of blasts from her rifle.

  The distraction was enough to give the vampire the advantage, and his next strike caught Valerie in the thigh. She grunted in pain and in one swift motion pulled it out, flipped it into the next Were’s torso, pulled her sword, and turned to the vampire.

  “Come on, you sonofabitch.”

  “I could’ve killed you,” he said, “But you interest me. I find myself wanting to know more about you. For example, what do you think you’re doing here?”

  “Stopping Lady Woo and the rest of them. You?”

  He smiled. “Defending Lady Woo and the rest of them.”

  “Will you stop talking and kill him already?!” Robin shouted, doing a damn good job of keeping the Weres at bay. Hey, she was doing a great job, so what was the hurry?

  “Guess that makes us mortal enemies then, huh?” Valerie said to the vampire, putting on a fake pout. “Our chances of being each other’s eternal soul mate are crushed.”

  “Oh, you took my hitting you the wrong way,” he replied with a sneer. “Hitting you, not hitting on you. See the difference?”

  She actually smiled now, stepping aside as a dead Were flew past. “Pity. I’d hate to kill the one Forsaken with a sense of humor.”

  He laughed, giving only a slight glance at the dead Were at his feet. “And honestly, I’d hate to die. But we do what we must.”

  “Indeed.” She hesitated. “You don’t have to fight me, you know. You could still turn and walk away.”

  “Afraid I can’t,” he replied, and charged.

  She decided to give him a fair chance, sheathing her sword and taking him on in hand-to-hand combat. Behind her Robin was shouting something about her finally getting into the action. It was hard to not make a witty comeback to that, but she decided to keep it to herself. Sometimes it was best to focus on the fight, and now was one of those times.

  He attempted to grab her by the shirt and slam her into a nearby tree, but she used her leg behind his as leverage to spin him around. Together they hit the ground, where she brought her elbow into first his nose, then twisted and brought her other elbow down hard on his groin.

  She quickly rolled away and onto her feet.

  He stood up bloody and wincing, so that when he charged her it was full of anger and therefore careless.

  A simple sidestep and strike sent him headfirst into a nearby tree. More forms had appeared around them, she noticed, and now gunshots sounded on both sides. Damn, so much for the element of surprise.

  As the vampire stumbled to recover, bullets riddled his body and he fell over. Valerie scampered up a tree and then dove, tackling a shooter and bringing up his rifle to crack the skull of the person next to him. Next she appropriated both their rifles and mowed down a line of people nearby. She saw her friends shooting from the Pod, taking out more would-be attackers.

  Robin stomped over, the dead wolves behind her, and she looked pissed.

  “You hurt?” Valerie asked, suddenly worried.

  “Only by the fact that you’d rather talk and flirt than get shit done,” Robin replied. She ducked slightly as more shots came, but the return fire was soon stopped by Garcia and Micky.

  “So…you’re saying you’d like to go ahead and attack the fortress now?”

  Robin frowned. “If you mean run into that hospital, guns blazing? Then yes.”

  “Grab some weapons,” Valerie said, still holding her two rifles, “and let’s go!”

  Together, each holding two rifles and ready to blast some evil bastards, the two vampire ladies ran toward the old hospital. There was no chance of a surprise attack so they let out their war cries, Valerie pushing fear into those within, and prepared for the worst.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The Fortress

  The attack on the fortress caught Valerie off-guard—she had really thought they would just run up, kick down some doors, and kill people like crazy. Those things would come, but not until they figured out how to deal with the deathtraps waiting out front.

  When these leaders had set this place up as a fallback they hadn’t been kidding around. The first clue came when Robin stepped on a land mine. If it weren’t for her vampire speed she definitely would’ve lost a leg. As it was, she was hit in the back by a hunk of debris. The explosion signaled to those within that they were close, and immediately alarms went off. Gun ports were opened and a new barrage of bullets rained down. When they were close enough, built-in flamethrowers created a wall that even Valerie didn’t want to test.

  She pulled back toward the Pod, taking Robin with her. Garcia and Micky were still taking care of the force outside the hospital.

  “What was that?” Robin asked, out of breath as they slid down next to the Pod.

  Valerie just shook her head, trying to get a grasp on their situation.

  “Welcome back, ladies!” Garcia said as he let off a couple rounds into the darkness.

  A bullet hit the Pod, ricocheting off and pinging against the ground right next to Valerie’s foot.

  That gave her an idea.

  “We’re going to have to borrow the doors,” she said, ripping one off as they looked at her in confusion. “Robin?”

  Robin nodded, grabbed the other door, and heaved it off. “I hope this’ll work.”

  “Hey, no complaining unless you have a better idea.”

  “What’re we gonna do?” Micky shouted.

  “Improvise,” Valerie answered, but when he just stared at her blankly she sighed and heaved the Pod onto its side. “There. Stay behind it and keep the enemies on that side, or dead.”

  “We’ll aim for keeping ‘em dead.”

  She nodded, then led the charge back to the hospital fortress.

  “We can still consider crawling through the sewers,” Robin offered.

  Valerie shook her head. “Not a chance.”

  The bullets were like a barrage of hail thudding against the doors. Mostly the doors held up, but a few times bullets tore through the metal, reminding Valerie to tell someone back in New York it was time for upgrades. By the time they reached the flamethrowers the shatterproof glass was looking like a spiderweb.

  “Just go for it!” Valerie shouted, and charged.

  Flames licked at her legs and she could feel them burn, but, as fast as they were running, the flames couldn’t catch. A moment later she slammed the Pod door into the front door that, even though it was apparently barricaded, gave under her strength.

  Her door was toast now, but Robin hadn’t used hers as a battering ram, so she quickly took a stance in front of Valerie as a man with an old-style rifle began firing three-round bursts. Two others were still prepping a SAW, not believing they could’ve gotten in here so fast. But before they could unleash their hell-storm of bullets Robin
tossed the door to take out the man with the rifle and Valerie threw herself up the wall, kicked off it, and landed on the upper level with the two machine gunners.

  They gave her terrified looks before turning to run, but didn’t make it more than three paces.

  She took the first down with her sword, but held the second one out to Robin.

  “Need a boost?”

  Robin turned, debating, but finally nodded and sank her teeth in, moaning as the warm blood filled her mouth. She dropped him when she was done and wiped the blood off her chin with her sleeve.

  “Who knows how much trouble we’ll face in here,” Robin noted defensively. “Might as well be ready.”

  Valerie nodded, but stood still. “Someday we’ll find a way for you to not need it. To be like…”

  “What, like you?” Robin smiled. “I’d take it in a heartbeat.”

  Valerie adjusted her grip on her sword and considered the two halls the stairs led to.

  “Always go left,” Robin stated. “Most people choose right, so I try to do the opposite as often as possible.”

  “Until everyone else figures out your trick.”

  “Impossible. Most people either don’t care or are too stupid.”

  Valerie laughed. “Good attitude to have.”

  “Want to go in there and do our thing, or stay here chatting with me?”

  With a shake of her head, Valerie led the way.

  In the first room they found men and women strapping on protective gear, their weapons nearby as they readied themselves for the defense of the building.

  “Too late,” Valerie hissed as she fell upon them like Death herself.

  Robin finished the last of them off and they moved to the next room, and from that to the next. By the time they were about seven rooms in the enemies coming at them were geared up and ready, but they were still no match for these two.

  At least they weren’t until they reached what looked like an old operating room where three Forsaken knelt behind an overturned metal table and opened fire on them. They dodged, but these ones were good shots and when the ladies flung themselves backward they found a roomful of Nosferatu—the mindless vampires. The Nosferatu attacked and the other vampires kept shooting, using the distraction to their advantage.